AMD or INTEL

[imported_IKnowNothing]

Hey guys,

I need to purchase a new CPU, Motherboard and Memory. I probably won't be overclocking because I can't risk loosing work time if things ah heck up. I understand dual systems are probably best for the render part but can't justify the cost at the moment.

This is what I will buy if I go AMD:

CPU - Athlon 64 3500+
Memory - DUAL CHANNEL KINGSTON HYPERX DDR RAM 400MHZ - 1 GIG
MB - MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum

If I go INTEL

CPU - INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 RETAIL P4 550 3.4GHZ
Memory - 1 GIG performance memory
MB - Not sure..something good

I'm looking to purchase around the 3.4 to 3.5GHZ range. I understand from most benchmarks the Athlon 64 kicks butt in games but I haven't seen much for 3D render performance. Lets say on average my render time on the INTEL cpu is 3 minutes, in real world time would the ATHLON 64 fall very far behind if at all?

Both CPU's look awsome to me and I don't follow any one brand because I'm loyal to it in some way or antoher, I just want facts on which one would perform overall the best for what I do.

Thanks for any feedback!

 

[BW86]

i'd go with the a64. the s939's are on par with the pentium with encoding and such and kicks its butt in gaming.

 

[imported_IKnowNothing]

I have been leaning towards the Athlon 64 for a few reasons. There may be a 64bit OS in the near future (fingers crossed) and some programs I use will probably provide 64bit instruction upgrades to take advantage of this. I also love my games so AMD is looking pretty good right now.

At the moment I'm using a P4 3.06 which cost double the price of the Athlon 64 I want to buy...doh

Thanks for your input!

 

[BW86]

yea the 64bit OS's(when they come out) are going to be great. Also if you get the s939 you can upgrade to a dual core a64 when they come out.

 

[dennisjai215]

as long as you arent rendering while playing games i would go amd64 since its not far behind at all..

and hell s939 sockets beat pentiums in encoding too with the newer gen motherboards

 

[imported_IKnowNothing]

Well I'm sold Athlon 64 3500+ it is.

Thanks guys for the nudge I needed!!!

 

[Mik3y]

yes, teh athlon 64 would be the better performer for hte better price.

 

[SimsFreak]

P4 = 32bit
AMD 53 = 64bit

Need to know more?

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: SimsFreak
P4 = 32bit
AMD 53 = 64bit

Need to know more?

correction:

P4 = 32bit
AMD 64 = 32 AND 64bit

 

[CaiNaM]

i don't think the 939 offer much other than scalability for clock increases later (tho that's not that big of a deal to me as by the time i get something > 3700+ i'll undoubteldy migrate to pci-e, so i'll need a new mb anyway). dual channel memory is more marketing that actual performance on amd; with the on-die memory controller the a64 does not benefit from dual channel memory in the same manner as the intel cpus.

the intels (particularly the prescott) will also consume more power and generate more heat, and are slightly behind the a64 in most games/apps benchmarks. newer reviews i've read show the amd doesn't give up much, if anything to intel in media encoding (mp3 encoding it even seems to be slightly faster), but if you desire to work with apps while encoding at the same time, i'd still say go intel. gaining 6fps in farcry for me is not worth giving up the smoothness of running multiple tasks; multitasking cpu intensive apps on my winxp sp2 hits my a64 ALOT harder than it does my p4c, and after experiencing this first hand and doing some searching online, most reviews where this is compared reflects similar results.

"The 925X seems to offer a slight advantage in the Business Winstone multitasking test over both the 875P and the Athlon 64 FX-53 system. When you switch to the more synthetic PCMark 2004 multithreading system tests, the tiny advantage flips to the 875P. We can really call it a tie. Note that the PCMark 04 test is not kind to the Athlon 64, however."

"The NAV/Photoshop elements test more strongly favors the 875P, but both P4's easily outperform the Athlon 64 in this particular scenario." ~ extremetech review

"The combination of the 3.6GHz Prescott and the 925X chipset seems to be a potent one for multitasking. The higher clock rate really seems to give Hyper-Threading a boost, something Intel has suggested would be the case."

"We see a dead heat with the P4EE in the Business Winstone multitasking tests and substantial leads in the PCMark tests. The Norton AntiVirus/Photoshop Elements test sees the Northwood actually edging out the higher clocked Prescott. Of course, the Athlon 64 fares poorly in these tests." ~ ms partner - channel insider newsletter (you could certainly argue ms is pimping intel here)

"For the multitasking scenario, we chose to run Norton AntiVirus in the background while using Windows Media Encoder 9 in the foreground to convert a 30-second AVI clip to a high-quality WMV file. We report the time it took to run just the video encode by itself and with NAV running in the background. The results show that Intel's Hyper-Threading clearly pays off. The Pentium 4 took about a minute less time to run the multitasking test than the Athlon 64 FX-51 systems did." ~ Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.

For the same price, we probably could have a socket-754 Athlon 64 chip, perhaps a 3000+. This may have bought us a little speed on individual benchmarks, but we had a very good reason for choosing a Pentium 4 in this configuration. Our machine is meant to watch and record TV, rip CDs, watch DVDs, do offline 3D rendering, edit photos--you name it. Frankly, the Pentium 4's HyperThreading feature makes it a much better multitasker than the Athlon 64. When you load up the CPU with very intensive tasks, HyperThreading lets you continue to perform other tasks without the system becoming quite so unresponsive. To see what I'm talking about, look at the multitasking performance charts from our most recent Pentium 4 CPU review." ~ ZDNet article

i'm sure there are many amd fans who will call those articles "bung", but they pretty much reflect the conclusions i've come to running both platforms side by side for the last 2 weeks. just in case, i have a new mainboard coming this week (a dfi lanparty ut 250gb - most amd enthusiasts consider this the "top of the line") and i'll re-examine this just to make sure it's not the chaintech vnf 3 (the reviews for this have been great, but it is a "budget" board, and there are some bugs in the bios'), but so far i'm disappointed.

 

[Mik3y]

cainam, nice article. question is: would you rather get 6 more fps in gaming? or wait a minute longer in encoding? because the athlon 64 has a better overall performance and price, this is why it is favored more from advanced users.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
cainam, nice article. question is: would you rather get 6 more fps in gaming? or wait a minute longer in encoding? because the athlon 64 has a better overall performance and price, this is why it is favored more from advanced users.

well, like is said, the 6 fps doesn't make any diff to me. that example was running farcry 4xaa/8xaf @ 50fps anyways; 55fps comparitively is not a significant difference to me. waiting 3-4 seconds for a menu to open while i have daoc running in a window does impact how my pc exprerience.

now try encoding a dvd in the background while playing daoc (or farcry) on the a64 rig sure, not many ppl do that, but some do, and to them it's a important and valid issue.

once i get the dfi board in and the os installed, i'll run some more accurate tests, but it's more than a 1 min diff in what i do; the 1 minute example was only a 30 second clip. how much longer would a 60 minute clip take?

again, this makes little impact to some people as they just don't use their pc's that way. i certainly don't have a problem with that it would, however seem to me tho that the "advanced users" you mention would be more concerned with this.

 

[SinfulWeeper]

My personal opinion, from what I have seen. Anything above 50FPS, the eye so much trouble distingushing more FPS's (except if you are @ full resolution WITH the highest graphics level). Only in benchies (and the real world) will the A64 perform better for gaming, but both perform the duty so well, your eye's will not know the difference.
For you other purpose, Intel has the edge. If your time is valueable. Then there is no reason to go AMD. Intel will perform the rendering better and faster.

It is a coin toss in my book: Both will give you at least 50FPS - 175FPS (well... depending on your video ) But more than that is mostly benchmark talking. It is not really needed unless you want braggin rights.
If your time is valueable while rendering, Intel is the better choice.

They both have their ups and downs, and NEITHER of them will studder in games. One will perform better in rendering tho, where time needed is important, providing you value your time, ie... 'time is money'.

But if Time is not money, I see no reason to go with Intel as 64bit OS's and Apps will come out for the mainstream user... when exactly. I dunno.
AMD is ready right now, but in the past. The market follows Intel. When Intel puts out a 64bit desktop CPU, it maybe another 3-5 years when M$ puts out their 64bit home use OS. Then again, maybe a month. In the end, it really is as I said, a coin flip.

 

[mechBgon]

When you say "render environments," do you mean that you don't do much with your 3D app except render? Modelling, manipulation and radiosity generation dwarf the actual rendering time by a huge margin in my usage pattern with my software. But you might already have all the models and scenes you need...? Anyway, remember that rendering is not necessarily, uh, the whole picture

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: IKnowNothing

At the moment I'm using a P4 3.06 which cost double the price of the Athlon 64 I want to buy...doh

hence the screen name!

jokes.

I'd go with the a64 too simply from a cost/performance perspective... otherwise both CPU's will suit your needs just fine.

 

[imported_IKnowNothing]

Wow awsome information here guys!

I choose the handle IKnowNothing because it seems the more I study something... the less I know about it

I agree that as far as games go both CPU's are wicked. As far as rendering goes I mainly render stills for clients which at the most take 25 mins to complete on my current P4 3.06. I use ACAD to develop the models and then import them into MAX.

One option I thought about for rendering was to buy 2 - Athlon 64 3000+ systems which are really cheap, and take advantage of Max's ability to use both systems. I have spare parts around so I would probably only have to purchase the MB/CPU/MEM.

There are so many options now when choosing a cpu/motherboard combo. Having access to a wicked forum like this with intelligent people really helps!

I think I will take the plung and go AMD Athlon 64 3500. Then in about 3 months buy an identical setup and start the render farming Also having two systems would somewhat solve the multitasking issues..play game on one..run music and game cheat sites on the other

We are pushing nearly 4GHZ now which was a distant dream not to long ago. Just for fun I started up my 286 the other day and turned it off real fast, had really bad back flashes lol.

Thanks guys for all the information, it really helps!!

 

[effee]

mmm..i'd got with the amds

 

[FelixDeCat]

mmm..i'd got with the intels

 

[SinfulWeeper]

Originally posted by: IKnowNothing
We are pushing nearly 4GHZ now which was a distant dream not to long ago. Just for fun I started up my 286 the other day and turned it off real fast, had really bad back flashes lol.

Thanks guys for all the information, it really helps!!

Alright, I have to call BS. Nothing beats the 8086, 286, well... not really so much the CPU's but the 16bit OS's . It was so simple. If watchin a p0rn on those things and the ol lady walks in. Hit the power or reset button, no loss (well, unless you forgot to save ). About a 4 and a ½ ago I was giving a breif internet tutorial to one of my wife's g/f's (she never used a computer before). I told her to open up www.whitehouse.com to see how Clinton reacats to questions/polls. With all the site's links, I thought it a good place for her on how to accurately read and learn how internet surfing goes since there is little advertising to distract her.
So she opens it up, and poof. Out pops in a p0rn0 site. I had mistakingly told her to write in whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov. No sooner than the page loads (which I am trying to exit out of, but those damn pre-mozilla pop-ups kept coming... damn them for not coming out with Mozilla earlier.) my wife pops in the door with me and her g/f sitting in front of my computer with a buncha p0rn0 stuff all over the place. That did not par well with my wife and we are not together to this day, but that was the main demise of our relationship. Her and her admittedly sexxy g/f and I in fron t of my computer with p0rn right there. Of course I tell of of the honest mistake, but it all goes in one ear and out the other.

What I wouldn't have done for a 286 so I can just hit that stupid power or reset button :|

 

[Duvie]

With rendering apps it is really program specific.....Some apps are multi threaded and can take advantage of HT in rendering, panning, zooming, and regenration which is real nice...Some apps are 64 bit capable and can take advanatge of the higher precision....

Do your research. The app I use ADT 2004 is HT aware and makes a huge 19-22% difference in rendering my animations. I have chosen to try a dual xeon setup to see if double the HT of 2 chips can give me even more...

Good luck...

Since you game as well I think the AMD is a nice choice that fits overall across the board....

 

[Vee]

3D renders that have been optimized for SSE2 and dual threads runs brilliantly on P4C and P4E.
The rather common 3DSmax, for instance, seem to in many/most scenarios perform significantly better on P4C than on an A64, though I have seen the reverse of that. Apparently, some configs you can make change the degree to which SSE2 and SMT can be utilized.

Since more serious renders (Lightwave, Mental Ray) seem to give P4 less advantage, it could be a quality thing. There seem to be such a factor involved in encoding too, lower quality gives P4 more advantage. My guess is that SSE2 runs less smoothly on the P4 at more complex math.

On gaming, I think the P4C seem to do very well indeed. Though that's just my personal impression, and the undisputed champion is Athlon64. Particularly on the ever increasing physical simulation in games, A64 has a brutal advantage. It completely outclasses P4 on MS flightsimulator 2004, for instance.

Regardless of anything of this, or the nice HT feature in the P4C/E, or other: I think it may be a very good idea to be compatible with future 64-bit software for both these activities, gaming and 3D rendering. Since the only known performer sofar is the A64, it's a straight choice. (I kinda doubt the P4F will be competitive, but we haven't seen it yet.)

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: Mik3y
cainam, nice article. question is: would you rather get 6 more fps in gaming? or wait a minute longer in encoding? because the athlon 64 has a better overall performance and price, this is why it is favored more from advanced users.

well, like is said, the 6 fps doesn't make any diff to me. that example was running farcry 4xaa/8xaf @ 50fps anyways; 55fps comparitively is not a significant difference to me. waiting 3-4 seconds for a menu to open while i have daoc running in a window does impact how my pc exprerience.

now try encoding a dvd in the background while playing daoc (or farcry) on the a64 rig sure, not many ppl do that, but some do, and to them it's a important and valid issue.

once i get the dfi board in and the os installed, i'll run some more accurate tests, but it's more than a 1 min diff in what i do; the 1 minute example was only a 30 second clip. how much longer would a 60 minute clip take?

again, this makes little impact to some people as they just don't use their pc's that way. i certainly don't have a problem with that it would, however seem to me tho that the "advanced users" you mention would be more concerned with this.

Gee, I have 2 instances of F@H, encode a DVD AND run Far Cry at the same time. Wait, Oh, I cheated, I have dual Opterons....

Anyway, I also have an Athlon64, and I still don't see any problems multitasking on that one (used to be my primary box) And encoding ? I usually walk away and watch TV while that is happening, but when my games pause, I get MAD ! It causes me to do bad things, like loose !

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: IKnowNothing
I think I will take the plung and go AMD Athlon 64 3500. Then in about 3 months buy an identical setup and start the render farming Also having two systems would somewhat solve the multitasking issues..play game on one..run music and game cheat sites on the other

Sounds like a good alternative for you, and is similar to my own reasoning for going A64 over P4 w/HT. Most of us have more than one capable system in our homes so for us the multitasking situation isn't a pressing one. As you pointed out, when in need of two CPU intensive tasks to be run you can simply use two systems to accomplish them. Why some of these people are talking about running these two powerful platforms side by side and yet don't divide the work between them is illogical to me. Who gives a shat if HT can help somewhat more, if using both systems is even better? Gaming on one while rendering/encoding/whatever on the other will be better than either alone can do it, HT or not.

Now, given what you need to do, why not keep the P4 HT and add a AMD64 system when the time comes? That way regardless of which platform the software is optimized for, you have the better tool for the job. Logic not loyalty should be the deciding factor, and given the expense of the 2nd system is something you can afford relatively soon, why limit yourself to one platform and lose the benefits of the other?

EDIT: If that isn't a OEM P4 system and you DIYed it with an enthusiast board, then you can overclock and get a good performance boost. Done properly, overclocking will allow the same stability as the default settings so even your critical workstation needs won't suffer.

 

[superHARD]

Originally posted by: BW86
i'd go with the a64. the s939's are on par with the pentium with encoding and such and kicks its butt in gaming.

^^what he said

 

[carlosd]

Originally posted by: FelixDeKat
mmm..i'd got with the intels

You're the only one practicing money wasting.